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  #122   Report Post  
Stewart Pinkerton
 
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On 3 Jan 2005 16:14:06 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Jodster wrote:

I remember a flame war that went on here last year between some loser that
said he could hear the difference silver patch cords made while transferring
a DIGITAL signal!!!


Maybe he could.


Maybe the Moon really is made of green cheese..........

WTF?! I used to work in an electronics lab that did calibration for the
military and I'm used to measuring jitter and slew rates in the pico-second
range. What does the Military use . .good old copper my friend! a $5.00 BNC
cable from Pomona is good to over 500MHz before it drops 3 dB. as long as
you keep capacitance in check, you could use ****ing coathangers for patch
cables. This guy got rode for over $200.00 to patch a digital signal through
silver.


Yes, and cables that MIGHT have resulted in much higher jitter rates
to the point where the degradation was audible.


In which case, the system was broken, and a well-shielded 75-ohm
copper cable is as good as it gets in any case.

It's easy to build something that sounds different, it's hard to build
something that sounds better.


However, it's not hard to build something that sounds accurate -
unless you use tubes........

The problem is that it's much too easy to
mistake different for better.

Don't laugh when people say they can hear something weird. Laugh when they
say it's an improvement.


No, just ask them to show results of blind testing that *proves* they
heard something different.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering
  #124   Report Post  
Jon Yaeger
 
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Hey Pinkie,

How's your "Andre Jute Inspired" solid state design coming along??

-J

  #125   Report Post  
Stewart Pinkerton
 
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On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 02:23:33 -0500, Jon Yaeger
wrote:

Hey Pinkie,

How's your "Andre Jute Inspired" solid state design coming along??


As previously noted, it's on hold until February, when I might get
some parts together. The paper design itself is done, but no way would
I be foolish enough to post it until I've tested and optimised it in
the metal.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering


  #126   Report Post  
Sander deWaal
 
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Stewart Pinkerton said:

Hey Pinkie,


How's your "Andre Jute Inspired" solid state design coming along??


As previously noted, it's on hold until February, when I might get
some parts together. The paper design itself is done, but no way would
I be foolish enough to post it until I've tested and optimised it in
the metal.


Twould be nice to see some Spice simulating of the design.... :-)

--
Sander de Waal
" SOA of a KT88? Sufficient. "
  #130   Report Post  
Jodster
 
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Scott, you're a ****ing moron . .

My judgement wasn't based on personal opinion, just on the fact you don't
know ****.

Cheers and peace,

Jodster

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
Jodster wrote:

I remember a flame war that went on here last year between some loser

that
said he could hear the difference silver patch cords made while

transferring
a DIGITAL signal!!!


Maybe he could.

WTF?! I used to work in an electronics lab that did calibration for the
military and I'm used to measuring jitter and slew rates in the

pico-second
range. What does the Military use . .good old copper my friend! a $5.00

BNC
cable from Pomona is good to over 500MHz before it drops 3 dB. as long as
you keep capacitance in check, you could use ****ing coathangers for

patch
cables. This guy got rode for over $200.00 to patch a digital signal

through
silver.


Yes, and cables that MIGHT have resulted in much higher jitter rates
to the point where the degradation was audible.

It's easy to build something that sounds different, it's hard to build
something that sounds better. The problem is that it's much too easy to
mistake different for better.

Don't laugh when people say they can hear something weird. Laugh when

they
say it's an improvement.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."





  #131   Report Post  
Jodster
 
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Hey Frank, ever measure the resistance of those cables? . . if it's low,
they'll never degrade a signal. If it's high , you're a ****ing moron for
using them . . and maybe if you wiggle them you'll find they're intermittent
.. .which makes you a ****ing double-moron for not checking your gear and
then posting your hallucinations to newsgroups..

send the cables to me Frank, I'll test them in a Gov't approved , military
standard calibration lab . . . Otherwise you can **** off with Scott . .

Cheers and Peace,

Jodster

"Frank Vuotto" wrote in message
...
On 3 Jan 2005 16:39:24 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:


It's EASY to make cables that make the music sound worse.


How does one go about that?

Just wondering because I have a set of speaker cables that will make
any amp/speaker sound like crap. They are flat, made for under the
carpet in autos. There's plenty of copper there,lots of strands in six
groups that are flattened and woven together (like you see in some
large ground cords). Seems like they should pass a speaker level
signal ok but even in 3' lengths they suck. Must be the weave.


Frank /~
http://newmex.com/f10
@/





  #132   Report Post  
Jodster
 
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Kudos to TCS, Stewart, Geoff and Jon for trying to be the voice of reason in
a ****storm of ignorance.

Sorry for my callousness gang, but has't this debate raged on for long
enough? My apologies to those I offended.
(except for Frank and Scott who can get ****ed. I'm sure they own Bose; the
best speakers on the market.)

Cheers and Peace,

Jodster

"TCS" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 06:34:06 +1300, Geoff Wood

wrote:

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
.. .
On 3 Jan 2005 16:39:24 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

It's EASY to make cables that make the music sound worse.

Actually, that's *extremely* difficult - and nigh on impossible with
digital.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering


I just tried it - I used a coathanger (2 actually) on a 3ft spdif
connection. Trimmed the output files to the same sample at each each end,
and the results were bit-perfect when compared to the conventional cable
one.


I don't have enough spare time to try it with wet string....


But *everyone* knows that if you use an extremely expensive cable, the
bits will be golden and the music will of course sound better.

You can save a trip to the store and get the same effect by burning a few
hundred dollar bills and letting the fumes waft over the cables.





  #133   Report Post  
Stewart Pinkerton
 
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On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 17:34:56 -0500, Jon Yaeger
wrote:

in article , Stewart Pinkerton at
wrote on 1/4/05 12:09 PM:

On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 02:23:33 -0500, Jon Yaeger
wrote:

Hey Pinkie,

How's your "Andre Jute Inspired" solid state design coming along??


As previously noted, it's on hold until February, when I might get
some parts together. The paper design itself is done, but no way would
I be foolish enough to post it until I've tested and optimised it in
the metal.


Pinkie,

I am among a number of folks who would be interested in seeing what you've
come up with thus far. It really doesn't matter if you've worked all of the
bugs out . . . the basic concept is what's of import.

You . . . of all people . . . shouldn't be concerned with possible criticism
or bias from others. In general, this is a generous and helpful group, and
you might be pleasantly surprised.


Having kicked around the various possible topologies, and having
concluded that the simplest and best design has already been done (by
JL Linsley Hood), I decided to stick with some basic principles just
for fun, i.e. no loop NFB, local degeneration to stabilise gain, and a
single voltage gain stage. Accordingly (wait for screams from the
self-acclaimed 'purists'), what I propose is a single common-emitter
driver stage with an unbypassed emitter resistor, loaded by a
bootstrapped resistor chain, to give a stable gain from DC upwards.
This stage is partnered by an emitter follower input buffer and a pair
of P-P emitter-follower output devices, giving four active devices, no
loop feedback, and with the distortion characteristics entirely
dominated by the 'driver' stage. I don't regard this as violating any
basic principles, as the input and output stages are merely impedance
converters.

Comments should be interesting.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering
  #134   Report Post  
Scott Dorsey
 
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Jodster wrote:
Hey Scott, have I reminded you today?

You're a ****ing moron. . go away. You have no reasonable basis to state
what you stated other than the fact that you know **** all . .


I don't?

Send me an address and I'll send you a cable with a resistor in it. Put
it on your S-PDIF line and your error rate will go through the roof. It
will sound different.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
  #135   Report Post  
TCS
 
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On 5 Jan 2005 09:09:24 -0500, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Jodster wrote:
Hey Scott, have I reminded you today?

You're a ****ing moron. . go away. You have no reasonable basis to state
what you stated other than the fact that you know **** all . .


I don't?


Send me an address and I'll send you a cable with a resistor in it. Put
it on your S-PDIF line and your error rate will go through the roof. It
will sound different.


So ****ing what? I can send you a cable cut in two and it'll also fail to
send the data through.

But any cable that is in good physical condition will work perfectly.
Even the ten cent cables given away free with equipment will work perfectly.


  #136   Report Post  
Scott Dorsey
 
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TCS wrote:
On 5 Jan 2005 09:09:24 -0500, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Jodster wrote:
Hey Scott, have I reminded you today?

You're a ****ing moron. . go away. You have no reasonable basis to state
what you stated other than the fact that you know **** all . .


I don't?


Send me an address and I'll send you a cable with a resistor in it. Put
it on your S-PDIF line and your error rate will go through the roof. It
will sound different.


So ****ing what? I can send you a cable cut in two and it'll also fail to
send the data through.

But any cable that is in good physical condition will work perfectly.
Even the ten cent cables given away free with equipment will work perfectly.


That's what I said. Did you read my original article at ALL?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
  #137   Report Post  
TCS
 
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On 5 Jan 2005 09:33:20 -0500, Scott Dorsey wrote:
TCS wrote:
On 5 Jan 2005 09:09:24 -0500, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Jodster wrote:
Hey Scott, have I reminded you today?

You're a ****ing moron. . go away. You have no reasonable basis to state
what you stated other than the fact that you know **** all . .


I don't?


Send me an address and I'll send you a cable with a resistor in it. Put
it on your S-PDIF line and your error rate will go through the roof. It
will sound different.


So ****ing what? I can send you a cable cut in two and it'll also fail to
send the data through.

But any cable that is in good physical condition will work perfectly.
Even the ten cent cables given away free with equipment will work perfectly.


That's what I said. Did you read my original article at ALL?


Yes. You said you could make a defective cable that would "sound different".
I pointed out that it is irrelevent.

  #138   Report Post  
Scott Dorsey
 
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TCS wrote:

Yes. You said you could make a defective cable that would "sound different".
I pointed out that it is irrelevent.


No, that's not irrelevant at all, because MANY of the fancy expensive cables
out there are in fact deliberately defective and specifically built to cause
aberrations that make them sound different.

For a really amusing case, look at the MIT speaker cables, which actually
have lumped-sum reactances in metal boxes at each end of the cable. In the
case of digital cables about all you can do is to induce phase noise (which
is still audible in a lot of poorly designed DACs) or cause errors (which
many of the fancy high-end digital cables do).

Check some of the high end digital cables and you'll find they aren't anything
even approaching 75 ohms in a lot of cases....
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
  #139   Report Post  
TCS
 
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On 5 Jan 2005 09:51:33 -0500, Scott Dorsey wrote:
TCS wrote:

Yes. You said you could make a defective cable that would "sound different".
I pointed out that it is irrelevent.


No, that's not irrelevant at all, because MANY of the fancy expensive cables
out there are in fact deliberately defective and specifically built to cause
aberrations that make them sound different.


For a really amusing case, look at the MIT speaker cables, which actually
have lumped-sum reactances in metal boxes at each end of the cable. In the
case of digital cables about all you can do is to induce phase noise (which
is still audible in a lot of poorly designed DACs) or cause errors (which
many of the fancy high-end digital cables do).


Check some of the high end digital cables and you'll find they aren't anything
even approaching 75 ohms in a lot of cases....
--scott



OK. I agree with everything you said there. Not only are expensive digital
cables often defective, but so are expensive analog cables. It isn't easy
making a cable so amazingly mediocre that it muffles high audio frequencies
but that's exactly what a "warm sounding" cable is. I'd rather buy speakers
that aren't shrill than muffle them with crap cables.
  #140   Report Post  
Paul Stamler
 
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"TCS" wrote in message
...
On 5 Jan 2005 09:51:33 -0500, Scott Dorsey wrote:
TCS wrote:


For a really amusing case, look at the MIT speaker cables, which actually
have lumped-sum reactances in metal boxes at each end of the cable. In

the
case of digital cables about all you can do is to induce phase noise

(which
is still audible in a lot of poorly designed DACs) or cause errors (which
many of the fancy high-end digital cables do).


Check some of the high end digital cables and you'll find they aren't

anything
even approaching 75 ohms in a lot of cases....
--scott



OK. I agree with everything you said there. Not only are expensive

digital
cables often defective, but so are expensive analog cables. It isn't easy
making a cable so amazingly mediocre that it muffles high audio

frequencies
but that's exactly what a "warm sounding" cable is. I'd rather buy

speakers
that aren't shrill than muffle them with crap cables.


Ah, but that wouldn't be the Audiophile Way. The Audiophile Way would be to
muffle the highs with a carefully-chosen cable so you can use the speakers
you just bought that have fantastic stereo imaging and bizarrely unbalanced,
shrieky tonal balance. The "imaging is everything" school of audiophilia has
been responsible for a lot of the nonsense in the audiophile world.

Peace,
Paul




  #141   Report Post  
TCS
 
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On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 18:08:37 GMT, Paul Stamler wrote:

Ah, but that wouldn't be the Audiophile Way. The Audiophile Way would be to
muffle the highs with a carefully-chosen cable so you can use the speakers
you just bought that have fantastic stereo imaging and bizarrely unbalanced,
shrieky tonal balance. The "imaging is everything" school of audiophilia has
been responsible for a lot of the nonsense in the audiophile world.


That, or they grew up listining to records and want their CD player
to sound the same.



  #142   Report Post  
scottp
 
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I grew up listening to records, and I listen to CDs too.
My rega table has plenty of top end, but it sounds different
than my CD player. It seems that alot on Analog CDs don't
sound real good to me, not all all mind you. Some early CDs
that were made from the analog originals sound pretty lifeless.

Its always a challenge to get all sources sounding good in
your system, and I think it is true that we are all going the a
specific sound we like.

The think the cartridge is a good way to change the tone
as well in a table.

Some material I think sounds better on my system on
the table some on the CD player, however I think the
quality of the recording is more important than the format.
I poor recording always sounds crapy.

HD dvd will be interesting, we get some more bit to play
with there.

Scott

TCS wrote:

On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 18:08:37 GMT, Paul Stamler wrote:



Ah, but that wouldn't be the Audiophile Way. The Audiophile Way would be to
muffle the highs with a carefully-chosen cable so you can use the speakers
you just bought that have fantastic stereo imaging and bizarrely unbalanced,
shrieky tonal balance. The "imaging is everything" school of audiophilia has
been responsible for a lot of the nonsense in the audiophile world.



That, or they grew up listining to records and want their CD player
to sound the same.







  #143   Report Post  
George Gleason
 
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TCS wrote:
On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 18:08:37 GMT, Paul Stamler wrote:


Ah, but that wouldn't be the Audiophile Way. The Audiophile Way would be to
muffle the highs with a carefully-chosen cable so you can use the speakers
you just bought that have fantastic stereo imaging and bizarrely unbalanced,
shrieky tonal balance. The "imaging is everything" school of audiophilia has
been responsible for a lot of the nonsense in the audiophile world.



That, or they grew up listining to records and want their CD player
to sound the same.



Why on earth would anyone take such a huge step backwards in sound quality?

I don't know about you but the records and playback equipment "I" grew
up with I wouldn't use in a machine shop today
it was just god awful
some type of belt driven wow and flutter generator by technics,a 19$
audio-technica cartridge, a crappy 30 watt pioneer reciever and albums
that spent as much time as drink coasters and ashtrys as they did on the
"turntable"
Oh and the hifi sound of some crappy tower speaker from KlH

Good playback gear was just not affordable to "me" growing up.

and even if it was my lifestyle had no place for it
who needed hifi to listen to the Clash?

CD were and are a blessing to the music consumer
  #144   Report Post  
DeserTBoB
 
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On 5 Jan 2005 09:09:24 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Send me an address and I'll send you a cable with a resistor in it. Put
it on your S-PDIF line and your error rate will go through the roof. It
will sound different. snip


As someone with over 20 years in the telecommunications field, the
last half being digital, I'll end this by saying that the ONLY
parameter that directly affects digital is level...period...as long as
the cables are within specified length. Over that length, lump
constants start rounding leading edges, but it STILL doesn't
matter...as long as the threshhold is reached for a 1, -1 or 0, who
cares what the leading edge looks like??

I did an experiment similar to the "coathanger" experiment years ago,
using SO cord as a patch cord on a 110 ohm digital patch trunk at the
DS-1 level. Results, NO change. Of course, with analog, things would
have gotten nasty on a 600 or 135 ohm balanced pair if this went for
any distance, especially at group frequencies (60-108 KHz) or above,
but digital didn't care at the DS-1 and E-1 levels, 1.544 and 2.048
Kb/s respectively. At 45 MB/s (DS-3), then things went to coax and
loss was indeed a factor. The cure? Crank the gain up a little on
the transmit side, and I got error free performance on the
receive...even using SO cord at the DS-3 level. Would I use this as
an in-service thing? Hell no...110 ohm balanced patch cords (same
things as used for 600 ohm voice, actually) and RG-187 coax with WECO
connectors ONLY. But, it proved my point...digital's either "good" or
it's "bad," there are no varying impairments like in analog, just
varying bit error rates.

I swear, I need to go into the snake oil business. There's too much
money to take away from fools who obviously don't need it.

dB
  #145   Report Post  
Jodster
 
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Scott, why you using a cable with a resistor in it??? I thought you said you
knew something?


"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
Jodster wrote:
Hey Scott, have I reminded you today?

You're a ****ing moron. . go away. You have no reasonable basis to state
what you stated other than the fact that you know **** all . .


I don't?

Send me an address and I'll send you a cable with a resistor in it. Put
it on your S-PDIF line and your error rate will go through the roof. It
will sound different.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."





  #146   Report Post  
Scott Dorsey
 
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DeserTBoB wrote:

As someone with over 20 years in the telecommunications field, the
last half being digital, I'll end this by saying that the ONLY
parameter that directly affects digital is level...period...as long as
the cables are within specified length. Over that length, lump
constants start rounding leading edges, but it STILL doesn't
matter...as long as the threshhold is reached for a 1, -1 or 0, who
cares what the leading edge looks like??


Yes, but you're also working with well-designed equipment that accurately
regenerates clock from a noisy signal.

You would not BELIEVE how badly-designed the input stages on some of the
equipment out there is. And it's not just a Japanese manufacturer whose
name begins with "PAN" and ends with "SONIC" either. There is a lot of
high dollar D/A boxes out there which are shockingly sensitive to the
quality of received clock.

And it is just getting worse with the shift to 96 ksamp/sec rates, too.

It's not hard to design this stuff properly, but it does require test
equipment that can display spectra of received clocks, etc. And it
requires engineers to actually pay attention to what they are doing.

It's certainly a lot better than it was 20 years ago in the PCM 1630
days, but there's still a lot of trash out there.

I did an experiment similar to the "coathanger" experiment years ago,
using SO cord as a patch cord on a 110 ohm digital patch trunk at the
DS-1 level. Results, NO change. Of course, with analog, things would
have gotten nasty on a 600 or 135 ohm balanced pair if this went for
any distance, especially at group frequencies (60-108 KHz) or above,
but digital didn't care at the DS-1 and E-1 levels, 1.544 and 2.048
Kb/s respectively. At 45 MB/s (DS-3), then things went to coax and
loss was indeed a factor. The cure? Crank the gain up a little on
the transmit side, and I got error free performance on the
receive...even using SO cord at the DS-3 level. Would I use this as
an in-service thing? Hell no...110 ohm balanced patch cords (same
things as used for 600 ohm voice, actually) and RG-187 coax with WECO
connectors ONLY. But, it proved my point...digital's either "good" or
it's "bad," there are no varying impairments like in analog, just
varying bit error rates.


If Bell Labs designed the S-PDIF standards, you'd be able to do this
with audio gear too. With some audio gear you still can. Don't try
it with the Wadia.

I swear, I need to go into the snake oil business. There's too much
money to take away from fools who obviously don't need it.


The whole audio business is snake oil. You're making people think
there is an orchestra behind those two black boxes, when there really
isn't any such thing. There's some pride in that.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
  #147   Report Post  
Scott Dorsey
 
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Jodster wrote:
Scott, why you using a cable with a resistor in it??? I thought you said you
knew something?


No, I just said that I had a reasonable basis to state what I did. I have
never claimed to know something. I know less and less every day.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
  #148   Report Post  
Glenn Dowdy
 
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"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
Jodster wrote:
Scott, why you using a cable with a resistor in it??? I thought you said

you
knew something?


No, I just said that I had a reasonable basis to state what I did. I have
never claimed to know something. I know less and less every day.


You have a teenager?

Glenn D.


  #149   Report Post  
Geoff Wood
 
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"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...


Check some of the high end digital cables and you'll find they aren't
anything
even approaching 75 ohms in a lot of cases....


Dunno what impedence my coathangers were. But that was spdif.

geoff


  #150   Report Post  
TCS
 
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On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 21:19:16 +1300, Geoff Wood wrote:

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...



Check some of the high end digital cables and you'll find they aren't
anything
even approaching 75 ohms in a lot of cases....


Dunno what impedence my coathangers were. But that was spdif.


Are you sure? Did you check the coathanger package for the "digital audio"
emblem? :-p



 
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